Saturday, 6 September 2014

The beauty of conversion.

At The Youth 2000 Prayer Festival in late August in Walsingham, about 1200 young people from across the country came together and spent for and a half days in the close company of the Blessed Eucharist enthroned in their midst.

This year's Festival marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of Youth 2000. This movement, founded in England, but represented now in many countries, has held a summer Prayer Festival for young people in England since the early 1990s. In August 1999 they first set up the Festival next to the Slipper Chapel at Walsingham, and for fifteen years now they have drawn an enormous crowd of young people to engage in time of joyful encounter and growth, awakenng them to the person of Jesus and to the new life of grace which he gives. Lives are changed, light is received, purpose is engendered and vocations are born.

For the priests who come to serve the Festival it is a time of great joy as we see young people drawing life from the Saviour and becoming established in His Church. Youth 2000 was born from World Youth Day in 1989, which that year took place in Santiago de Compostella, and mirrors those prophetic events: Christ at the centre surrounded by a community of disciples. The building up of the Church in this country lies at the heart of the mission of Youth 2000. The whole event takes place under the care of Our Lady of Walsingham, to whom we entrust the Christian formation of this generation.

And of course, when you are camping out in the open fields of Norfolk there is always space for a paella!

Ss Michael, Gabriel and Raphael

May the holy angels be our protection

Holy Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander the world for the ruin of souls.

Blessed John Paul II

Apostle of the New Evangelisation

Christ offers you his friendship. He gave his life so that those who wish to answer his call can indeed become his friends.

St Paul the Apostle

Fearless evangeliser of the nations

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. " Galatians 2.20

St Augustine of Hippo

Anti-Pelagian hero

Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in teYou have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts find no rest until they rest in you.

St John Mary Baptist Vianney

Role model of priesthood lived in its fulness

Le sacerdoce, c'est l'amour du coeur de Jésus.The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus.

St Ignatius of Loyola

Taught the way to friendship with Christ through prayer

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me: I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

St Thomas More

Hero of the Catholic Faith in England

I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.

St Maximilian Kolbe

A martyr for friendship

No one in the world can change truth. What we can and should do is seek truth and serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is within. Beyond the armies of occupation and the hectacombs of the extermination camps, two irreconcilable armies lie in the depth of every soul. And of what use are the victories of the battlefield if we are defeated in our innermost selves?

St Aelred of Rievaulx

Teacher in the ways of friendship

Friendship is a stage bordering upon that perfection which consists in that love and knowledge of God, so that man from a friend of his fellow man becomes a friend of God, according to the words of the Saviour in the Gospel: I will not now call you servants, but my friends.

St Justin, Martyr

Proto-Apologist for the Faith

"But straightaway a flame was kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed me...If, then, you have any concern for yourself, and if you are eagerly looking for salvation, and if you believe in God, you may-since you are not indifferent to the matter - become acquainted with the Christ of God, and, after being initiated, live a happy life."

St Margaret Clitherow

She died for the priesthood and the Mass together with her unborn child

I ground my faith upon Jesus Christ, and by Him I steadfastly believe to be saved, as is taught in the Catholic Church through all Christendom, and promised to remain with Her unto the world's end, and hell gates shall not prevail against it: and by God's assistance I mean to live and die in the same faith.